The third-ever wrapped up last weekend at Seaside City Hall in Seaside, California, with nearly all 52 participants reaching the end of the 2,100-mile route. The Monterey Car Weeeeak Rally, as it was known, put crappy old cars and their tenders through the wringer. All 52 cars have fantastic stories to tell and you can. We used Instagram for the official scoring and we’ll post each team’s Instagram account by their write-up so you can see more of their stories. The depth of this field—We’ll tell more teams’ stories soon—meant that narrowing everything down to just 11 awards took hours of debate between this author and. In the end, these are the 11 teams who took home awards, although probably two-thirds of the field was really in competition for them. Dishonorable Mention – Christopher Cook and Jon Lyons (Toyota MR2/Ford Festiva Roadster) When they set out from Monterey, Cook and Lyons were driving one of the newest cars on the rally.

Surely, the first-generation MR2 would run just fine, even with an oil breather made from a parts-store oil quart and a filter. They had a swamp cooler-style setup in the MR2’s frunk and things looked good for the Warhol-painted Toyota. The duo was first on the road and farthest ahead of the field for each of the first two days. That doesn’t really get you extra points, but rest time at the hotel is a valuable enough commodity on this rally.

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By the middle of Day 3, however, the entire bumper wore a thick sheen of oil. Things didn’t seem dire at the mid-day checkpoint in Granger, Washington, but they didn’t seem great, either. Somewhere between Granger and the night’s checkpoint (Bend, Oregon), however, the engine rattled to halt with a terminal failure. A post shared by Chris Floren (@cflodailyturismo) on Aug 18, 2017 at 7:58am PDT Luckily, happened by shortly in his Ford Crown Victoria. That Panther had formerly served as Eyesore Racing’s tow pig so it was perfectly happy to flat-tow the MR2 about 50 miles to a scrapyard, after which Chris gave Cook and Lyons a ride to Bend. Did the MR2 duo give up?

Ranger Physical Training Program. With some help from Amanda Silverstein in the Aussie-market Mini panel van, they found this Ford Festiva “Roadster” on CraigsList for $600 in Bend. From central Oregon, they cannonballed the Festiva the final day through California’s 100-degree Central Valley and then slid neatly into Monterey during Car Week with a car every bit as rare as what you’d see at Pebble Beach. Honorably dishonorable! () Dishonorable Mention – Mark and Ginger Garff with Leo McFluffypants (1979 Lincoln Mark V) If you wanted a picture-perfect image of the ideal Lemons Rally car, this Lincoln Mark V Collector’s Edition is it. In 1979, this top-trim personal luxury coupe was the single most-expensive American car you could buy. Accordingly, Lincoln packed it with ridiculous features like a vinyl-covered Continental kit and a gold-colored grille.

That’s 1970s opulence if we’ve ever seen it. Spook Squad Game Show. The Garffs on the trip and the Lincoln—which they coined the #LincNessMonster—afforded them the opportunity to travel 2,000 miles in style with Leo McFluffypants, their mastiff and mascot.